Realware

by Rudy Rucker

  "It did," said Randy. "Big-time. People and moldies are get-tin' along better all the taahm. It's just the men fighting each other that's ruining things. As for me personally --I got such a good thing goin' with Babs I can't hardly remember what I used to see in bein' a cheeseball. Leave Cobb alone, Willa Jean, run on inside." Randy pushed Willa Jean away from Cobb and toward the warehouse door. "Everyone's grateful to you, Cobb. But what's this about you bein' tired? We was expectin' you to run for mayor."

  "No," said Cobb. "I'm ready to move further on. Politics should die. Politics used to be about dividing up scarce resources--and nothing's scarce anymore. With the allas here, politics is just about hatred and war. Want to know why I'm so bummed all of a sudden? Guess what I heard on my uvvy just as I touched down? People have started throwing kiloton bombs."

  "Nukes?" asked Randy. "I thought--"

  "Conventional explosives," said Cobb. "If you ask it to, an alla can make you a thousand ton cube of TNT. Some people just realized. Most of downtown Jerusalem's gone. And now I'm hearing" --Cobb sighed. "Baghdad too."

  "We should block the allas from making weapons," said Randy.

  "But what's a weapon?" said Cobb. "Gasoline is a weapon. Oxygen and hydrogen. Acid. Even a rock is a weapon if you drop it from high in the sky. I think we should tell the Metamartians to tell Om to take away the allas."

  "I saw their saucer in the sky over Oakland earlier today," said Randy. "And then they darted away. I bet they were going to the Mideast. Jerusalem and Baghdad got flattened?"

  "Yes," said Cobb.

  "What should I do?"

  "Live your life, however much of it's left for you. Marry Babs." Yoke. June 1

  "Hold still," said Joke, leaning forward to touch up Yoke's eye makeup. The twin sisters had always preferred using each other to using mirrors. "There," said Joke. "Perfect." She leaned back and smiled. The two of them were in a bridal dressing room off the Fairmont Hotel's top-floor ballroom. It was almost time for the wedding. Yoke could hear music; Saint and some of his friends were brain-playing ancient flute motets on sheets of imipolex--with hints of heavy metal. "I'm glad we're doing this on Earth," said Joke. "It's so pretty down here. If only things don't keep getting worse. The heavy gravity is good for a ceremony. It makes everything seem solemn." Joke moved her arms in slow, marching motions. "Are you stoked?"

  "You like Phil, don't you, Joke?"

  "He's great. That blond hair and dark chin--yummy. And he looks at you like he's so in love. Emul and Berenice approve too." Thanks to some unfortunate wetware meddling, Joke had been born with two pushy robots' minds coded into the right hemisphere of her brain. It made her very knowledgeable, but her spatial perception was lousy. "They, um, did some research on him."

  "Do I want to know?" asked Yoke.

  "It's all good," said Joke. "Emul says Phil has a clean criminal record and he's exactly who he says he is. And Berenice says Phil's genome is not only mutation-free, but a very good fit for ours. I mean yours. So I wanted to tell you. Sorry."

  "Oh, it doesn't matter," said Yoke. "I've abandoned any hope of privacy--at least for today. What a circus."

  "And here comes the clown!" said Yoke. A hard-looking man was peeking in the dressing room door. Their father, Whitey Mydol. He had a Mohawk strip of hair that went down the back of his head and continued on into his shirt collar. And over the shirt he was wearing a tuxedo. "I'll go check on Ma," said Joke, and moved out of the way; the tiny dressing room was only big enough for two people.

  "Clown is right," said Whitey, his rough face splitting in a surprisingly pleasant smile. "I'm walking funny. How many days did it take you to get used to this gravity, Yoke?"

  "Three, four weeks. Hi, Pop. How do I look?"

  "You look -- oh, Yoke, you look like an angel. You remind me of Darla --back when. She says our twenty-fifth anniversary is coming up this month."

  "Are you being nice to her, Pop?"

  "What a question!" Whitey shifted uneasily, looking too big for the tiny, white-upholstered bride's room. "Don't worry about us, Yoke, things are better. I was bad, but I'm being good again. Anyway, it's me who should be asking you things. Like are you totally sure you want to marry Phil? I can get you out of it if you want." He cracked his scarred knuckles as if thinking about a fight.

  "I'm doing this," said Yoke firmly. "Are you with me or not?"

  "For sure." Whitey ran his hand back and forth over his head, fluffing his Mohawk. This was the first time Yoke had ever seen him wearing a shirt and suit coat, let alone a tuxedo. "I just thought it's the kind of thing a father's supposed to ask. Phil's a good man. And we've already paid for the room." He gave a grim chuckle. 'Might as well do it, then, before some dook sets off a bomb. How do we know when to march up the aisle?"

  "When the music changes." And then it did.

  " 'Here Comes the Bride,' " said Whitey, holding out his arm. In the little hallway, they found Babs and Stahn, coming out of their own dressing room. While Yoke's dress was a sleek sheath of silk with a tulle veil, Babs had gone "smart art"; her dress and hair were alive with slowly moving pearl DIM heads.

  The Fairmont owners had alla-remodeled the top-floor hall-room with a gorgeous parquet wood floor and white silk-covered walls winking with little diamonds. There were dozens of floor-to-ceiling windows, all flung wide-open to let in the gentle June breeze. The sweetness of it caught in Yoke's throat. If only the world could stop its downward spiral. Five more cities had been blown up in the past four weeks.

  The chairs were arranged so that the ballroom's aisle was double wide; that way Yoke, Whitey, Babs, and Stahn could walk up side by side, with nobody first and nobody second. Waiting up in front by the windows were Randy and Phil, standing on either side of--Cobb Anderson.

  It had developed that none of the four betrothed had a close enough church affiliation to know of a particular minister to use. So Cobb had quickly picked up a gimmie justice-of-the-peace license and offered to perform the ceremony himself. The old man moldie claimed he was tired, but he still loved to put himself at the center of things. Randy was thrilled to be getting married by his great-grandfather, and Babs didn't mind. As for Yoke and Phil, they too were glad to have Cobb supervise this religious ceremony--for had not each of the three seen the same Divine SUN?

  Though it was a beautiful service, the time seemed to pass in funny spurts. Everything was crawling while they were walking up the aisle. This was the part Yoke had always visualized as a little girl thinking about weddings. Walking up the aisle in your bridal gown. It was almost as if she could feel her own eyes watching her. The man at the end of the aisle had always been vague, but now, today, he was clear. Dear Phil. Then things speeded up, and suddenly Yoke and Phil were saying "I will" and "I do." Time all but stopped for the ring part and the kiss. Phil had a brand-new ring for Yoke, which was good. Babs and Randy's vows happened in fast-forward; Yoke didn't hear a word of them. And then they were walking out in slow motion and it felt to Yoke like something she had done a hundred times before.

  The waiters cleared the chairs away and set out big tables that they filled with alla-made food; Phil and Babs had made up the designs for the wedding feast. Darla was one of the first to hug Yoke, and then Whitey and Joke. And then Yoke hugged Randy and Babs.

  "We're married," laughed Babs. "It's going to be so fun." But there was a shrill edge to her gaiety. Disaster was stalking them all.

  Everyone was there. Yoke's bridesmaid was Joke, of course, and Babs's was her art-gallery friend Kundry Asiz. Saint was Phil's best man, and Corey Rhizome served as Randy's.

  Randy and Corey had taken quite a liking to each other over the last couple of weeks. One thing they had in common was that they were both really into garage-style limpware engineering. Corey even helped Yoke to finally get her imipolex coral working. Yoke's new thing this week was growing her reefs in air instead of water; she'd started using DIM gnats for the polyps. In fact yesterday she'd grown a fabulous organic-looking headboard for her
and Phil's bed. It was a struggle to keep on doing things, with the murders and battles and bombing getting worse every day. But love and art still mattered; yes, they mattered more than hate and war.

  The older generation at the wedding party included Darla and Whitey, Stahn and Wendy, Randy's father Willy Taze, Phil's mother Eve, and even Phil's stepmother Willow. Phil's Uncle Rex was there too, as well as his grandmother Isolde and his great-aunt Hildegarde, who had the most astonishing face. They all thought Yoke was wonderful, and said they'd known she was perfect for Phil when they'd seen him talking to her at poor Kurt's funeral. Oh, and Randy's new aunt Delia Taze had turned up from San Diego, mainly to see Willy. Delia had brought her mother along, seventy-nine-year-old Use, a bit wobbly and sour, but Cobb Anderson's daughter nonetheless. Cobb was overwhelmed to see her. Among the younger guests, Terri and Tre Dietz had come up from Santa Cruz with their kids Dolf and Wren, who were loving it. In honor of the happy day--and who knew how many more happy days there would be? -- Randy and the Dietzes even made friends, with apologies and forgiveness all around. In fact little Wren was on the floor playing with Randy's plastic chicken Willa Jean. Aarbie Kidd hadn't been invited, but Theodore was there with a leather biker as his date. Derek and his dog Umberto had come with Kundry. There were plenty of others as well; in fact at the last minute, Yoke's friends Kandie and Cocole had even turned up from the Moon, they said they'd been wanting to visit Earth anyway, so why not now, before it was all blown up.

  There were even a few moldies among the guests. Phil had asked Isis Snooks, who'd been such a help with his blimps, and Isis had brought along the flashy Thutmosis as her date. Wendy and Cobb each had a few moldie friends, and they were there too. Thanks to the stinkeater bug, mixing with moldies wasn't much of a problem anymore, so long as you had an open mind.

  People were drinking champagne like there'd be no tomorrow, jabbering away like magpies, everyone jumping at every loud noise. In the last month, Dakar, Hamburg, Hong Kong, Belfast, Antwerp, and Paris had been hit by enormous bombs. Allas had repaired the buildings, but a lot of people had died. And just yesterday New York City had been bombed too. Everyone was on edge, waiting for the next thing to happen. And then it did.

  "A flying saucer!" screamed Phil's mother, Eve. "Look out, Phil! Oh, what if they've come for you again!"

  The saucer hanging outside the ballroom windows was a traditional metal disk with a dome in the middle. The Metamartians' ship.

  "They can help us!" shouted Randy. "They can take away the allas!" The frames and sashes of the windows quivered as if water were passing over them, and then the saucer had slid through the wall and into the ballroom. It rested there, cocked a bit toward one side, just fitting between floor and ceiling. A radial line appeared along the curve of the central dome, and then a pie-shaped sector of the curved metal slid open. Out came eight figures: the seven Metamartians from before, plus a new one, a gray little shape like a bald girl with big, almond-shaped eyes.

  Yoke sniffed at the air--yes, there was the scent of old-fashioned moldies. The Metamartians hadn't yet caught the stinkeater bug.

  "We are here to salute the nuptials," said Shimmer, holding up her hands and making soothing gestures. "Please remain calm, dear friends. We come in peace, seeking your aid. I am Shimmer from Metamars, and my companions are Ptah, Peg, Josef, Siss, Wubwub, Haresh. As many of you know, it is we and our god Om who have brought mankind and moldies the alla. And our gift has been mediated by these four whose marriages you celebrate today: Yoke, Phil, Randy, and Babs. We too have a blessed event to rejoice in: the birth of our sevenfold daughter Lova." The gray little Lova bent her mouth up into a U-shaped smile and bowed, making flowing gestures with her long-fingered hands.

  "Skip the bullshit and take away the fucking allas!" yelled Willow. "They're ruining our world and you know it!"

  "She's right," called Randy. "Tell Om to take the allas away!"

  "Please, Om!" shouted Babs. "The allas are wrong for us. We aren't ready." Lova bowed again.

  "She's butt-ugly," said Yoke, all her tension rushing out into a sudden guffaw.

  "They're making fun of us."

  "Careful," said Darla, coming up behind Yoke. "They're going to ask for something big. It's like in a fairy tale. The witches at the princess's wedding."

  "You right, Darla," said Wubwub. "But what we after is no big thing: we need help gettin' outta here is all. We don't know which way to go toward two-dimensional time. And we got the notion one of you can help us. How 'bout it, Phil?"

  Yoke threw her arms around Phil. "You leave him alone!"

  "Wait!" said Phil, digging in his pocket. "Maybe it's this thing -- " He pulled out his little black ball with the bright spots inside it. "Is this what you need, Wubwub? The fishbowl thing I got from Om? It's a star map, isn't it? Turn off the allas and use the star map to go."

  "It's a map, but it ain't gonna help us none," said Wubwub, showing his crooked, yellow teeth in a long smile. "But let me see it anyhow."

  "Throw it to him, Phil!" said Yoke. "Don't let him come near you!" So Phil tossed his little ball, and Wubwub caught it. The Metamartians pressed forward to peer at it, and the beetle Josef actually crawled around upon it.

  "Yes, Om already gave me one of these through my alla," said Shimmer shortly.

  "It's a star map, but it's of no use. It only shows your part of the cosmos. Your map shows your zone, and we have another map that shows our zone, the good part of the cosmos with two-dimensional time. But there's no master map that shows the interdimensional connection. We can't find the passage, and we can't understand Om's explanations of where it is."

  There was an explosion somewhere outside, not too terribly distant. A few of the guests screamed.

  "Turn off the allas right now!" cried Yoke. "Can't you see they're a disaster?"

  "We can ask Om to do it," said Ptah quietly. "In fact Om can even disactualize all of the bombs and weapons that people's allas have made. Turn them back into air. All this can happen -- provided that one of you will help us on our way. It's your ability to dream that we need, you see. Human dreaming is a rudimentary reaching out toward two-dimensional time. If one of you comes with us as we travel out across your galaxy, then we can watch this person repeatedly sleep and dream--and we'll be able to sniff our way out toward the fat part of time. We need a harbor pilot, in other words. A native guide. So how about it, Phil? You can bring Yoke if you like."

  A sudden mesh of alla-control lines appeared around the seven Metamartians. It was Whitey, standing at Yoke's side, holding out his alla and trying to turn the aliens into air. But at the instant Whitey said "Actualize," each of the aliens hopped off to one side. Whitey accomplished nothing more than turning some air into air.

  "Senseless violence," said Shimmer. "How typical. What's the matter with you men anyway? We've been trying to calm things down, but it seems to be hopeless. All we're asking today is that an Earthling accompany us as we move on. We want to take one of you who knows us a little bit. If we simply abduct some random human, they'll be too frightened to help us. And not everyone can dream in the right way. Phil's our first choice because his dreams are just right. Om's been looking through people's memories. Those mountains you always dream about, Phil -- they point toward two-dimensional time."

  "I can dream as well as Phil can," said Cobb, his voice loud and firm. "I dream about mountains all the time. Leave the young folks alone."

  "The great old man," said Peg.

  "He not human," said Siss.

  "Yes he is," said Shimmer, cocking her head as if listening to an inner voice.

  "In fact, Om says he'll be fine. She hadn't thought to look before, but her records show that Cobb's dreams are just as useful Phil's."

  "Moldies dream?" Darla whispered to Yoke. "I didn't know that."

  "Of course we do," said Isis Snooks, overhearing. "What did you think we were? Machines? I'm glad Cobb is doing this. It'll get us some xoxxin' respect."

  "Come aboa
rd, Cobb," Ptah was saying. "We'll fly to the outer atmosphere and power up to just below the speed of light.

  Once we get enough readings, we'll chirp into personality waves and really be on our way. We'll show you how."

  "If I come, will Om turn off the allas?" asked Cobb.

  "Om is ready to do that," said Shimmer. "By now she has collected a complete enough set of human memories. She'll remember your race forever. She only hopes you don't feel you've been cheated once the allas are gone. But the constant killing and the explosions -- "

  "I suppose we're too primitive," said Babs sadly.

  "It's not just that," said Josef. "It's that one-dimensional time isn't a good place for realware. Some of your bombings weren't even deliberate. Apparently people have started setting off bombs by accident in their dreams. The more that people worry about bombs, the more bombs there will be. Your human dreaming is a risky business. Although Metamartians don't dream, we've occasionally had runaway alla misuse, our own epidemics of mass hysteria. But for us a global disaster doesn't much matter--because we have so many strands of time. No, I'm afraid that at this stage of your culture, and with your uncontrolled dreaming, your single line of time is simply too fragile for the allas. You do well to want Om to take them away."

  "Then it's a deal," said Cobb. "I'll come with you and dream the way toward two-dimensional time. And you'll ask Om to take away the allas." The Metamartians were silent for a moment, communing with Om.

  "Everyone sure they don't want no more alla?" called Wub-wub. There was another explosion outside, this time closer than before. "Om wants to know."

  "No more alla!" screamed the crowd.

  "Hurry up," cried Yoke. "Do it now! And have Om take away the alla-made weapons like Shimmer said she could."

  "So be it," said Ptah.